A Valley Ridge Christmas

Despite the weather and his anxiety, he chuckled. “If there were stars tonight, we’d never see them through the snow. We’ll have to be thankful for the street signs.” The off-ramp ended and he brought the RV to a halt. “Which way?”

“All we have to do is follow the signs,” she said, pointing.

There was another sign proclaiming Valley Ridge to the right.

Some of his anxiety eased—Josie always knew what to say. He put her through so much, but her optimistic attitude never wavered.

Boyd had never heard of Valley Ridge. He wasn’t sure if they were in New York still or if they had crossed over into Pennsylvania—not that it mattered. Just as it didn’t matter how small a town this Valley Ridge was. It would have some parking lot he could pull the RV into. And if not, pulling over to the side of the road there had to be a great deal safer than pulling over to the side of the interstate. Frankly, he hadn’t been sure he could tell where the side of the interstate was.

He eased the RV onto the two-lane road and followed the sign that pointed to the right. It felt as if it took hours to enter the town proper, but he finally spotted a sign that read Valley Ridge Library. He couldn’t see the building, but there were reflectors that marked what he assumed to be the driveway. He pulled the RV between them and parked. It was probably the middle of the unlit parking lot, but for tonight, that would suffice.

He turned off the engine and finally looked at his wife. “I wasn’t sure we were going to make it.”

“I never doubted you for a minute.” Josie’s arms were resting on her enormous stomach. “Carl slept through the whole thing.”

He glanced at his two-year-old son, safely strapped into his car seat in the back.

“I’ve never driven in such a bad storm.” And he never wanted to be out in weather like this again.

His fault. This was all his fault.

If the plastics plant he’d worked for hadn’t closed. If he hadn’t lost his job, they wouldn’t have lost their tiny bungalow in Plattsburgh, Vermont. If they hadn’t lost the house, he wouldn’t have sold everything to buy a twenty-year-old RV that had seen better days and packed up his family, then headed off to North Dakota and the promise of work there.

As if she knew what he was thinking, Josie leaned over and kissed his unshaven cheek. “It will all come out in the wash, Boyd.”

He smiled to hear her using her grandmother’s saying. Her grandmother had been a crusty old woman who’d scared the heck out of him at first, but eventually became a grandmother to him, as well. When their families objected to them marrying at such a young age, she’d stood up for him and Josie.

“We’re all here together, safe and warm,” Josie said. “The storm can blow the rest of the night. It won’t bother us.”

“I should...” he started, trying to prioritize what needed to be done.

“You should go to sleep.”

He nodded, knowing she’d worry if he didn’t go to bed with her. “After I turn on the propane so we have heat.” He pulled on his parka and opened the driver’s side door. The snow was almost up to his knees and blowing so hard that he couldn’t see the library or any other houses. He shut the door and felt small and alone, standing in the midst of the snowstorm. Then he looked back through the window and saw Josie kneeling by Carl. He took a deep breath. Josie didn’t deserve the situation they were in. And somehow he’d find a way out of it.

For a moment, the wind stopped howling and rather than being pelted by flakes, the snow fell gently around him. He glanced up and caught the merest hint of light in the sky. A star. One small beacon in the sky, shining like a promise of better things.

He heard the thought and laughed at himself. Josie the eternal optimist, forever talking about signs, had turned his brain to mush. He was thankful he was alone and hadn’t said the words out loud.

As if on cue, the wind picked up again and the small star disappeared behind the whirling snow.

Boyd turned on the propane and went back into the aging RV.

Josie had Carl unbuckled, and as Boyd picked him up, his son stayed asleep. “I’m sorry,” he said softly as they walked toward the bed in the back of the RV.

“Boyd Myers, you’ve got nothing to be sorry about.”

He gave voice to his thoughts this time. “If I hadn’t lost my job, then we wouldn’t have lost the house, and we wouldn’t be out here in the middle of...”

“Snowmageddon,” she supplied with a grin. “We could play ‘what-if’ all night, but that’s not going to get us anywhere.”

“We’re going to spend the holidays in a RV. We’re driving away from everything we know. We’re driving across country, not knowing if there will really be a job waiting for me.”

“We’re going to spend the holidays with each other. With Carl. With the new baby.” She patted her stomach. “We have a roof over our head, and we have each other. For Thanksgiving next week, I have a whole list of things I’m thankful for. You’re at the top of it. You’ll find a job,” she finished with utter conviction and certainty. “Everything happens for a reason. Plattsburgh wasn’t our real home. We’re on our way to finding the town we belong to, but no matter what, we’re already home as long as we have each other.”

“My little optimist,” he said as he shucked his jeans and sweatshirt and crawled under the covers.

Josie tucked the sleeping, pajama-clad Carl into the middle, then climbed into the bed on her own side.

“We’re lucky, Boyd. We might not have much money...”

He snorted at the understatement.

Josie continued as if she hadn’t heard him. “And you could make a long list of what we once had and were forced to sell, but we’ve got the RV. We’ve got Carl and soon we’ll have this new baby. We have each other. Everything else will work out.”

“You really believe that?” He reached over and stroked her fine, soft hair that lay spread on the pillow next to his.

“I really believe that. Life is funny. One moment, you think you’ve lost everything, the next you discover that you’ve found something even better.”

The image of that lone star shining in the midst of the blizzard flitted through his head. He leaned across their sleeping son and kissed Josie’s forehead.

She was right. He’d lost his job, but so had many other people in recent years.

He’d also lost the house because he couldn’t afford the payments, but again, so had many others.

Even though he was in the same boat as all those other folks, he had one advantage. He had Josie. He’d loved her ever since meeting her on their first day of kindergarten.

She always denied that and insisted he’d never even noticed her until high school, but she was wrong. He’d noticed her all right. It had taken him the nine years between kindergarten and high school to work up the courage to approach her as anything more than a friend. But he’d known as a five-year-old that Josie Bentley was someone rare and special, just as he’d known she deserved someone so much better than him. But to his utter amazement, she loved him. She’d picked him.

They may have lost everything, but somehow, he’d find a way to get it all back—if for no other reason than because Josie believed in him. And that thought, like one lone star in the midst of a blizzard, burned bright as he closed his eyes. Somehow, he’d get it all back for Josie.

No matter what it took.

CHAPTER ONE

MAEVE BUCHANAN WOKE up at precisely 5:00 a.m. She didn’t need to look at a clock to know it was five. Maeve had an internal alarm that went off on its own every morning. Some people might find that annoying, but she liked mornings, so she didn’t mind. She enjoyed being able to catch a breath before jumping into her day—her normally very busy day.

As she snuggled under the covers she realized how cold her exposed face was. It was colder than a typical November morning in Valley Ridge, New York. She glanced out the window and rather than being greeted by the big oak tree, all she saw was snow. The blizzard that the weatherman forecasted had obviously arrived.

She eased down the cover and realized that it wasn’t simply cold...it was freezing.

She glanced at the alarm clock she never set, but no bright numbers lit up the room.

Darn. That meant the power was out. And no power meant the furnace wasn’t working, so she not only had no light, she had no heat.

Like ripping off a bandage, some things were easier if you did them fast, so Maeve pushed back the covers and yipped as the frigid air assaulted her. She quickly put on her robe and slippers and when that didn’t seem like enough, she pulled the throw from the bottom of the bed over her shoulders. She hurried down the narrow, steep steps into the kitchen and checked the window. Her view was reduced to almost nothing.

She kicked off her slippers and put on her UGGs, her barn coat and a hat. She looked down and couldn’t help but smile. Her red-and-black checkered pajama pants looked absurd sandwiched between her burgundy barn coat, the edge of her robe and her tan boots, but there was no one around to notice as she nipped out the side door and marched along the house to the small shed at the end of the driveway where she stored her wood.